Automated telephone call dialing systems are being used to an increasingly greater extent by commercial and charitable telephone marketing organizations and by collection agencies. In a typical automated telephone call dialing system a telephone number is obtained from the customer (or potential customer) account records, a trunk is seized, the telephone number is dialed on the trunk and, when the call is answered, an operator is connected to the trunk. The use of automated dialing substantially increases operator productivity by eliminating the need for the operator to look up and dial the telephone number.
Recently, telephone companies in certain areas have begun offering a call blocking feature to the telephone subscriber. One aspect of the call blocking feature allows the telephone subscriber to key in a telephone number from which the subscriber does not wish to receive calls. Another aspect of the call blocking feature allows the telephone subscriber, after receiving a call, to key in a code indicating that the subscriber wishes calls from that number to be blocked. Some telephone subscribers, almost as a reflex action, key in the code to activate the call blocking feature anytime that the subscriber receives a call from a telephone marketing service or a collection agency. A party who uses a trunk to call a telephone number will hear a telephone company recording indicating that call blocking has been activated if the telephone subscriber has activated call blocking with respect to that trunk.
Telephone marketing services and collection agencies typically have a large bank of trunks which they use in conjunction with the automated call dialing system. Therefore, even if one or more trunks have been blocked with respect to a particular telephone number by the telephone subscriber there are other trunks which have not been blocked and which can be used to call the telephone number. The telephone company typically only allows the subscriber to block a certain number of trunks. Therefore, the telephone marketing service or the collection agency will, in the end, be able to reach the subscriber if the telephone marketing service or collection agency has a larger number of trunks than the telephone company permits the subscriber to block.
In a typical automated call dialing system a call is placed by dialing the telephone number on the first trunk which becomes available. Because of the random nature of the length of any particular call a trunk, on occasion, may be repeatedly used to call the same telephone number. In this case, the operator would repeatedly hear the call blocking message.
Therefore, there is a need for a method of selecting trunk lines to place automated calls so as to reduce or eliminate the number of times that a telephone number is called on a trunk line for which the telephone subscriber has activated the call blocking feature.
In automated call dialing it is desirable, and sometimes required by law, to have an operator available to handle the call, when the call is answered, as opposed to placing the called party on hold or playing a recorded message to the called party. Call pacing algorithms regulate the rate at which calls are placed in response to statistics on the time between dialing and answering, the length of conversations, and the number of operators available. However, a call pacing algorithm is an estimate and conditions may occur which invalidate the estimate and can cause a call to be answered when an operator is not available. It would be preferable for the call to be cancelled if current projections indicate that the call will be answered before an operator is available.
Therefore, there is a need for monitoring the call pacing projections and cancelling calls which may be answered before an operator is available.